30 June 2012

Mito was once a stronghold of the Tokugawa clan, so obviously there's a castle, right? Unfortunately, Mito Castle was bombed to pieces in WWII. This gate did survive, however, and you can see it today on Mito Castle Ruins Street, right next to the high school. See here for a tour of the castle site. Photo.

A yakuimon is a specific type of gate, described here. For defensive purposes it was not the best design, because the large overhanging roof tended to block the defenders' view of the enemy's approach.

The character 門 is pronounced mon, and means gate. It is probably the easiest Japanese character to remember because it looks just like what it describes, and is the basis of a lot of kanji related to doors and coming and going. Good word to know at the airport too.

The soccer season is half over in the places where they play from March to November. After 21 games Mito HollyHock sit eleventh out of twenty-two clubs, with 9 wins, 4 draws and 8 losses, and a goal difference of +2. This is an improvement on last year, when they finished 17th.

Our men in Ireland, University College Dublin AFC, find themself in eleventh place as well, which is a bit worse for them because there are now only eleven clubs in the Premier Division, twelfth-place Monaghan United having dropped out at the half for financial reasons. But it means that UCD and everyone else in the division are safe from relegation this year.

Pohang Steelers are off last year's pace, and currently sit in seventh place in the K League.

Montreal Impact are eighth out of ten clubs in the MLS Eastern Conference, but they're ahead of Toronto FC, which is the main thing.

Star Trek didn't do much with the planet Mars, even though it's just over there. Sisko worked at the shipyards before DS9, and Peter Weller tried to blow up the earth from there in the last season of ST: Enterprise.

The Nepeanites must have gotten off of Mars before the Accident. Though, perhaps they caused it?

Bob Dole was calling Al Gore Ozone Boy in early 1996. Did him no good.

28 June 2012

27 June 2012

This year I have been reading as much Japanese literature in translation as I can lay my hands on. Here are five that I recommend.

Junichi Saga, Confessions of a Yakuza, (Kodansha, 1991).

Not a novel, but it reads like one. A doctor attends to a dying man, who recounts his life as a gangster before, during, and a bit after WWII. Part of what's surprising about this story is the near absence of anything we would consider hardcore crime. Most of the yakuza's career revolves around illicit gambling activities or associated crimes like moving people from place to place after curfew. And a lot of attention is paid to getting along with the neighbours. There is nearly no gun play, and when one murder does take place it's treated as a catastrope by the crime bosses. Most of the yakuza's troubles stem from his relations with women, which tend to lead him toward shirking his duties. There is a graphic but thankfully quick account of venereal surgery.

Fumiko Enchi, The Waiting Years, (Kodansha, 1980).

This story of a contest of wills between a powerful husband and his dutiful wife spans the period from the 1870s to the First World War. Many other novelists would have gotten an 800-page family saga out of this material, but Enchi is just interested in the points of greatest dramatic tension, and brings the novel to a sharp conclusion after only 188 pages. It is said this book took nine years to write, and I'm sure much of the time was spent cutting it down. Passing over the first part of the marriage, Enchi begins only when the wife Tomo has already received the humiliation of being sent to choose her husband Yoshitomo a concubine. You follow Tomo down the years, waiting for her act of revenge.

Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain, (Kodansha, 1979).

A novel about the Hiroshima bombing, this is nevertheless a wise and even funny book about human nature. In the midst of unprecedented disaster, the characters stay true to their individual concerns, suggesting that the key to survival might in the end be the power of denial. Shigematsu, a rather important man in his own mind, spends the days after the bomb on various important tasks that lead him to crisscross the demolished and radioactive city, taking the reader on a Dantean tour of the aftermath. Shigematsu witnesses horrors, and comes close to death himself a few times, but he doesn't become overwhelmed, which I think is Ibuse's strategy for getting the reader through the novel. There are many things he wants you to see, but in order for that to happen you have to finish the book. You're not grief-struck at the end, but sadness and compassion have crept up on you.

Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper + The Professor, (Harvill Secker, 2009).

This is the only recent novel of the bunch, and it certainly feels like something from a different generation. Japanese history is not as big a concern here. It's a small story about a woman from a housekeeping service who is assigned a client who has lost the ability to form memories. Every day she has to reintroduce herself and explain the purpose of her visit. The client was once a mathematics professor, and over the course of the novel he teaches the housekeeper and her son about numbers. They made a film of this book, but shifted the point of view to the son. Which is too bad I think because one of the points of the book is the need to respect housecleaners more. Baseball is also an important element, as a creator of community and a source of cool stats.

Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes (Vintage, 1964).

An entomologist travels to a seaside village to collect insects. He discovers that a huge sand dune has buried part of the town, but that the inhabitants have dug holes in the dune to preserve their houses. When he asks where he can stay overnight they put him up in one of the houses in one of the holes, but then they won't let him out. They made a film of this one too, in the Sixties, in black and white.

26 June 2012

25 June 2012

Rakugo is a style of humorous storytelling that has been around a long while but still has an audience in Japan. A single performer kneels on a cushion and using only a couple of props creates a narrative and all its characters. See here for a demonstration in English, and here for the performance pictured above. Also check out this site.

Rakugo is also an inspiration for mangaka. Yoshihiro Tatsumi's Fallen Words illustrates eight rakugo stories. The manga Joshiraku revolves around the backstage conversations of a troupe of female rakugoka.

24 June 2012

23 June 2012

The disaster at Ibrox continues. Rangers FC is now officially defunct. A new company, THE Rangers FC, exists on paper, but exactly who will play for it, and in which league, no person can say. 2012-13 is set to begin in a month and a half, so the schedules have been published, but with the tacit understanding that there could be a lot of rescheduling to follow. The SPL schedule includes a team called Club 12, which might be The Rangers, or if not them, then possibly Dundee or Dunfermline. They don't know. Somehow there's no contingency plan for this kind of thing. Any solution will produce outrage from some quarter, because outrage is what Scottish football is all about. That, and never meting out the same punishment twice.

What are the possible outcomes?

The Rangers might be voted back in to the SPL on July 4th. Some of the other clubs have calculated that they stand to lose heavily at the gate if The Rangers are not on the schedule. But reinstatement will be proof to many that there is no integrity left in the Scottish game. There'd be outrage in Livingston for sure. And it's beginning to look as if the other SPL clubs have begun to reason that not having The Rangers around would be to their advantage. Hearts, Dundee United and [Aberdeen, or maybe not] are all set to vote against readmitting the Ibrox cheaterbox.

The Rangers could be demoted to the First Division. This compromise scenario surfaced last week, and involves a bundle of face-saving reforms, including shifting the First Division into the SPL as SPL2. A lot would have to happen very very quickly for this scenario to happen. There'd be outrage in Livingston again, but at least the Livi supporters would be able to yell about it when The Rangers visit. I'd expect that Partick Thistle would be very pleased to have The Rangers in the division. Rangers/Partick is an underappreciated Glasgow derby. Thistle last played Rangers on September 28th, 2008, in the League Cup.

Are Dunfermline or Dundee prepared to fill the gap in the SPL? The Pars finished twelfth, and have since dismantled their SPL squad. They would be guaranteed to finish twelfth again. Dundee are a good pick to win the First Division this year, so they might be a better choice.

The Rangers could (very many would say should) be demoted to the SFL Third Division. Some of the Third Division clubs would have difficulty accommodating the hordes of Glaswegians who would be descending upon their villages each Saturday. But Queen's Park, who play at Hampden, with its 50,000 seats, would have no problem. Queen's Park last played Rangers on August 20th, 1991, also in the League Cup. Rangers/Queen's Park has not been a regular Glasgow derby for years if not centuries.

No word of The Rangers joining the Second Division.

And conceivably The Rangers could sit out the year, and tour the globe playing friendlies. The organization has often floated the idea of leaving Scottish football, for England, or an international league.